LVMH renouncing to appeal against the very complex and courageous decision of the Disciplinary Commission of the AMF is very positive news: it consolidates the case law on compliance with shareholding disclosure thresholds and information on significant economic positions held on listed companies.

The activist Children Investment Fund, already famous for its historical assumption of position over the 2012 aborted merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse, just requested publicly EADS to sell its 46% stake in the French aerospace Dassault Aviation.

Having hit the headlines in June 2013 with a controversial rejected tender offer from ROYALTY PHARMA, ELAN’s Corporation is back on the financial front page. This time, a quite typical feature of pharmaceuticals group, ECGS points to a strong case of greed and shareholders neglect.

Most of the investors do not really look carefully at proposals requiring to renew auditors : during the 2012 proxy season in France, this type of proposal was approved by 98.8% of the voting rights. However some responsible investors start to do their best efforts to address the problem of auditors' independence and a coalition of investors led by USS was launched with the support of ECGS and Proxinvest.

As long as the French State does not respect shareholders, it will not find investors and investments, it will not create jobs. If this sounds tough it is only logical and demonstrated as the last twenty years show that left or right wing French governments and their civil servants despise investors, whether individual or institutional.

Ethos, our ECGS partner, recommends to oppose the remuneration reports at the annual general meetings of Credit Suisse (26 April) and UBS (2 May). Despite some progress made by the two banks with regard to the executive remuneration structure, the amounts paid are still too high.

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